


They'll Turn Away No More

by embroiderama



Category: White Collar
Genre: Angst, Episode: s03e11 Checkmate, Food Poisoning, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-06
Updated: 2013-07-06
Packaged: 2017-12-17 13:50:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/868272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/embroiderama/pseuds/embroiderama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neal was trying to let his life and his relationships get back to normal after everything that happened with Keller, but a bad case of food poisoning came along and derailed his weekend plans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	They'll Turn Away No More

**Author's Note:**

> During the Friday night chat, I was prompted and encouraged to write shameless h/c, and this is indeed quite shameless. I also wrote this for [my own prompt](http://whitecollarhc.livejournal.com/118436.html?thread=987044#t987044) over at the [](http://whitecollarhc.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://whitecollarhc.livejournal.com/)**whitecollarhc** Fever Fest II. Title from New Order's "Blue Monday."

Neal sat slumped at his dining room table with a strangely small can of Coke in his hand and tried to figure out if there was any part of his body that didn't hurt. Saturday had been a beautiful spring day, and instead of sitting around the apartment pitying himself for being at odds or in the doghouse with his friends Neal had pushed himself into going out. He put on a favorite warm-weather outfit and just walked in the sunshine until he found a street fair complete with music and vendors of all descriptions. With a sandwich in hand, Neal had leaned against a telephone pole and eaten lunch while watching the band play and reminding himself that life could be good. Peter and Elizabeth and Mozzie were all still alive, everybody's bruises were healing, he wasn't in prison, and he even had a chance at commutation; the rest of it would get better.

His stomach full, Neal wandered around looking at various goods on display then picked up a loaf of fresh bread and headed home. That sandwich kept Neal almost uncomfortably full through to the evening, and after dispassionately eating some wonton soup left over from Friday's dinner Neal went to bed only to wake a few hours later to stomach cramps that sent him stumbling to the bathroom. After going back and forth from the bed to the bathroom a few times, Neal gave up and camped out on the floor with his bathrobe for a blanket and a towel for a pillow.

Curled up on the tile floor, miserable and shivering, Neal told himself that whatever bug he had would work its way through his system and he'd be fine. He took a bottle of water with him and made a point of sipping at it when his stomach would settle for a few minutes at a time. Chewing on a few of the antacid tablets in his medicine cabinet had only made him feel worse, and he wasn't eager to re-experience throwing up their gritty sweetness.

Now it was Monday morning, and that loaf of bread he'd bought on Saturday was going stale in its paper bag on the counter. Neal was due at the office in just over an hour, but there was no way he could manage it. Dragging himself from the bathroom to the kitchen had been a production of pushing himself up off the floor and then shuffling down the short hallway with his hand on the wall before wavering across to the kitchen. He'd been doing his best to stay hydrated, but Neal knew it probably wasn't enough, and he hadn't eaten anything that had stayed down since breakfast on Saturday morning.

The undersized cans of Coke that were lurking in the kitchen cabinets reminded Neal of Sara, of the way she liked to indulge in measured doses of her favorite things, and as much as he regretted the way things had ended between them he was glad she didn't have to see him like this--weak and disgusting. With a tiny can of warm Coke and a chunk of no-longer-fresh bread in hand, Neal sat at the table and stared at his phone. Since the whole disaster of Elizabeth's abduction, things with Peter still felt tentative, and Neal really didn't want to rock the boat by calling in sick. On the other hand, he wouldn't be of any use in his current state so he had to bite the bullet and call Peter. He fortified himself with a small sip of soda, then cleared his throat and dialed.

"Yeah, Neal?" Traffic sounds were audible behind Peter's voice, and Neal tried to let himself believe that the irritation he heard was all for Peter's fellow drivers.

"I'm not going to be able to make it in this morning. I'm sorry, I caught some kind of a bug this weekend."

For a moment there was nothing but traffic noises, and Neal closed his eyes, leaning his head on his hand, his elbow propped on the table. "You don't sound good." Peter sighed. "Swear to me this isn't a hangover, Neal."

"I wish." Neal took another sip of his Coke.

"Are you okay there? You need to go to the doctor or anything?"

"I think I'm past the worst of it." Neal hoped that was true. "It's food poisoning; I just need to sleep it off."

"Okay, well, call me if anything changes, and I'll expect to see you tomorrow."

"Thanks."

Neal put the phone down and forced himself to chew and swallow a bite of bread. The nausea was coming back, but he thought maybe he just needed something in his stomach to settle it. Maybe then he could rest under the covers on his nice, soft bed. The whole center of his body ached from twisting itself into knots for the last day and a half, and the rest of his body wasn't any better. His head throbbed from dehydration or fever or whatever bug had made him sick in the first place, and no part of his body appreciated spending so much time on tile and porcelain.

Neal took his time alternating small bites of bread with sips of Coke and poked at his phone in a desultory fashion. He was too exhausted to focus for long, and he was just about to fall asleep in his uncomfortable chair when his stomach churned, his gut clenching hard. He took a slow breath, hoping to ride it out, but seconds later he gave up and stumbled back to his erstwhile home in the bathroom.

The little bit of food and drink were gone quickly but his stomach continued to try to get rid of its non-existent contents, and Neal felt tears burning in his eyes to match the bile burning in his throat. He could barely catch his breath, and when he pushed himself up and away from the toilet the room turned gray and wavery, tilting to the side. Neal's heart raced as he panicked, but he couldn't hold on and everything collapsed into darkness.

Neal opened his eyes to the now-familiar view of the bathroom baseboards, the base of the sink, the grout between the tiles on the floor. And his phone. He didn't remember bring it with him, but he must have had it in his hand when the nausea had driven him away from the table. He pulled it closer, hoping it hadn't broken when it hit the floor. He blinked his eyes and struggled to focus his vision as he hit the button on top, and what he saw was both good and bad. Good: the screen was uncracked, the phone working fine. Bad: it was almost two hours later than the last time he remembered. The room swam around Neal as he tried to push himself up and for the first time in nearly two days of being miserably sick he felt something different--fear.

He couldn't keep anything down, the pain in his head warred with his stomach for supremacy, and now consciousness was a tenuous thing. He was alone--June out of town, Mozzie off somewhere nursing his disappointment--and he really didn't want to be alone. It was embarrassing, to have so little control over his own body, and he knew he was disgusting, but he didn't know how to do this on his own anymore. Neal's stomach churned, and he tried again to push himself up but he was too weak. He heaved up a small amount of the nothing in his stomach onto the floor under his face then curled up around the pain.

When he could breathe again, Neal rubbed his hand over his eyes and struggled to see well enough through the haze to pull up Peter's number on his phone.

"Feeling better?" Peter said. Neal closed his eyes and took a steadying breath, trying to figure out what to say. Too much time must have gone by because Peter's voice was coming from the phone again. "Neal? Hello?"

"I-I need help." Neal winced against the rough, garbled sound of his voice.

"What?" Peter's voice was sharp now, and Neal swallowed to clear his throat. He was desperate for some water but he couldn't reach his bottle and knew his stomach would only reject it anyway.

"I--" Neal paused and swallowed again, "--need help. Please." Neal's emotions were as out of his control as the rest of him, and he thought that he'd break into pieces if Peter didn't agree, if Peter didn't come.

"Jesus. Do you need an ambulance?"

"No. Please." The thought of an ambulance coming was enough to make Neal panic again. There was nobody in the house to let them inside, and there was no way he could make it to his own door on his own, much less the front door of the house. Peter had a key, and Peter was the one Neal wanted to help him.

"Okay, it's okay. I'm on my way." Peter's voice was softer now, and the relief that he would come--that despite everything that had happened he would still come--was overwhelming. He shivered, and he heard Peter saying his name but he couldn't stop himself from drifting back into the darkness.

For a moment, Neal was sure he was being groomed by a very large cat. He felt the strange gentleness of the creature's large, rough tongue and opened his eyes, sure he was about to look into the maw of a tiger. Lights stung Neal's eyes, and when the criss-crossing stars cleared from his vision, he saw that there was no tiger. Instead of a large cat, there was just Peter, crouched on the floor next to Neal with his jacket off and a damp washcloth in his hand.

"Hey, there you are," Peter said, which didn't make a lot of sense because where else was Neal supposed to be? Then Neal remembered being sick and alone, and the gratitude and relief that flooded through him were overwhelming. He took in a shuddering breath and closed his eyes, ashamed now that he wasn't alone at the way his emotions were still beyond his control. "No, hey, don't close your eyes." Peter's hand was on Neal's face now, cool and comforting.

"Why?" As far as Neal was concerned, closing his eyes and disappearing for a while sounded like a great idea, especially now that Peter was there to take care of things.

"Because if you pass out again I'm going to have to call that ambulance, but if you can stay halfway awake we'll get you to the hospital with a lot less fanfare. What do you think?"

Neal nodded his head against Peter's hand. "Okay," he said, barely breathing it out.

"Okay. Tell me if you need me to stop." After that, Peter didn't waste time. He slid his arm under Neal's shoulders and pulled him up to sit and then up to his feet. The sudden change in altitude was too much, but Peter held Neal up as he dry heaved over the sink and then led him out to the main room of the apartment where Clinton Jones sat waiting on the couch.

"What?" Neal managed to ask.

"He came along to help. Don't worry about it." Peter led Neal, all but carrying him over to the sofa where he couldn't help leaning against Jones's shoulder.

"Sorry," Neal mumbled, too tired to be more than a little bit ashamed.

"It's okay, Caffrey. Just warn me if you're about to hurl."

Neal nodded, and then Peter was back. Neal shoved his feet into the shoes Peter put on the floor in front of him, and he let Peter thread his arms into a jacket, resigned to being dressed like a child. "I can just stay here," Neal said, only just managing to avoid saying, _but not alone_.

"No way." Peter shook his head. "You have one hell of a fever, and you look half dead." Peter stood up and when Neal looked up at him he didn't see any anger; he didn't know what to do with that. "Let's go."

Neal felt his head spin and his stomach turn over when he was tugged to his feet again, but there was nothing at all left for him to throw up, and there was nowhere for him to fall with Peter and Jones bracketing him. He felt their steadiness and bulk on both sides of him, and when looking down the stairs made his dizziness worse, Neal closed his eyes and focused on keeping his feet underneath him. Even if he failed, he finally felt like everything would be okay.

Neal had a vague memory of sitting on a hard chair, yearning for the questionable comfort of being horizontal on the floor, but the next time the world was really solid around him he was in a bed--well, a gurney--surrounded by a pale blue curtain. He had an IV on one arm, a blood pressure cuff on his other arm and some wires attached to his chest with sticky patches. He still hurt all over, and his stomach especially still ached, but nothing was churning or cramping and that was a huge improvement on the last couple of days.

On the other hand, he was alone, just as he'd been during most of his non-work hours since the mess with Keller. Neal blamed the fever that still ached behind his eyes for the way he felt: needy, lonely, alone.

It meant a lot that Peter had answered his call, but Neal didn't ever want to see the level of anger that would let Peter ignore an acquaintance in distress, much less a colleague or a friend or a responsibility. Neal hoped he could get back on better footing with Peter, but clearly Peter wasn't interested in hanging around the emergency room waiting for Neal to wake up. Neal thought about getting down off the gurney and making his way home now that he didn't feel in danger of passing out again, but it didn't seem worth the effort given that his current position was a lot more comfortable than the bathroom floor.

The emergency room, if that's where he was, sounded busy outside the flimsy barrier of the curtain, and Neal figured that since he wasn't actually doing anything other than absorbing fluids he'd be left alone until somebody remembered it was time to send him home. When the curtain shook and started to open, Neal prepared himself to deal with some nurse or med student, but he was completely unprepared for the sight of Elizabeth Burke, followed by Peter. Neal pushed himself to sit up straighter, despite the complaints of his sore stomach muscles.

"Hi," he said, just realizing how dry his throat was when he heard the raw croak of it.

"Hi," Elizabeth replied with a sympathetic smile. "You know, let me go get you some water."

Peter watched her leave then turned back to look at Neal, and there was a strange trace of guilt in his features. "I'm sorry, I didn't think you'd be awake yet. I had to go by the office and then meet El, but I didn't want you to think I'd just dumped you here."

"No, it's okay. Thanks though, for coming to get me."

"You're welcome." Peter cast a glance over the monitors and lines attached to Neal. "I'm glad you called. You were in pretty bad shape, you know."

"I know. I was kind of freaked out to be honest. Did I hallucinate that Jones was there?"

"No, that was real. You sounded pretty bad on the phone, and I had a feeling a trip to the hospital was in order. I just didn't like my chances of getting you down all of those stairs without the both of us going down head first, so I brought reinforcements."

"Peter Burke, always prepared."

"I try." Peter rested his hands on the lowered bar on the side of Neal's bed. "Now look, I'm pretty sure they're going to discharge you soon and when my wife gets back in here she's going to ask you to come back to our house tonight."

Neal kept his face still to avoid reacting. He wanted that and he was terrified of it, and he was sure that Peter was about to tell him to turn down the offer.

"I want you to say yes, okay? I know things are a little bit complicated right now, but you were pretty sick this morning. You shouldn't be by yourself."

"You don't have to do that, Peter. I'll be fine, I just need to sleep it off."

"Yeah probably, and you can sleep in our guest room."

"But I--"

Peter cut him off, moving his hand to Neal's shoulder. "Do you really want to be alone there again tonight? After the last couple of days? It doesn't look like they were too much fun for you."

The thought of going back to being sick and alone made Neal's stomach clench in a way that had nothing to do with unfriendly bacteria. He shook his head then made an effort to smile as Elizabeth walked back in with a bottle of water in hand.

"I tracked down your doctor, and she said it was okay for you to have this." She cracked open the bottle and held it out for Neal to take. "She's going to come in soon, and when they let you leave I want you to come home with us, okay?"

She looked at him with her big eyes, and Neal couldn't say no. He didn't even want to say no. "Okay," he said, then took a sip of water as though that was the only reason his voice had been rough.

"Good," she said, then reached out and squeezed Neal's hand.

Neal wasn't sure if everything would get back to the way it was before, but for the first time he believed that he hadn't lost the friendships he had with Peter and Elizabeth. For the first time in a while, he didn't feel alone.

**Author's Note:**

> This story has a timestamp [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2166360/chapters/4737318).


End file.
